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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24080617">we're counting down (it'll never end)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/shangxia/pseuds/coca'>coca (shangxia)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stranger Things (TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, Max-centric, Post-Canon, but without the moving away fiasco, grief is mentioned in passing, i just want to write elmax, max has a lot of feelings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 21:13:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>697</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24080617</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/shangxia/pseuds/coca</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>You’d blink once— twice, thrice— and it’s like seeing through a clearer lens. It’s El, coming to her, not knowing what’s to come about Max’s heart much later on, already tugging on her sleeve.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eleven | Jane Hopper/Maxine "Max" Mayfield</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>we're counting down (it'll never end)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There’s always more than what meets the eye. It’s trite, a timeworn platitude but one that Max knows all too well. It’s one that essentially summarizes the jovial, preadolescence Max when meeting the supposedly new members of her family— clamps of jitters and excitement because she’d be having a brother of her own— that subdued and gradually became a feeling of constant feeble and <em>‘where did it go wrong’s</em> because <em>this Billy wasn’t the Billy she had dreamt of meeting</em>. It’s one that clashes with her own stamp of human rationality when Lucas, Dustin, and Mike came off as a bunch of wackos who got paranoid over medium-to-nothing predicaments. It’s one that is undeniably there in the back of her head and in lightbulbs of every aged, wise characters in movies.</p><p>It’s not an off-putting comment so to say the things, the people that are involved in her life are the actual representations of the adage: a history of jackasses in the family, not one— but far too many encounters with inter-dimensional monsters, a clandestine Russian operation under fucking <em>Starcourt</em> and maybe—</p><p>Maybe Eleven— <em>El</em>, in her own not-so-fucked up ways, got her own sub-category too. And Max, she doesn’t want to think about Billy, <em>not now</em>. Billy is a tape left on pause, only to rewind and rewind, and leave her to cling on what’s left— she doesn’t need and doesn’t want it.</p><p>In her current perpetual state of ailment, inside of her room, she lets herself think of El. Lets herself indulge in a smile that’s a little too fond at the thought.</p><p> </p><p>There is <em>so much more</em> to El than what you’d see. It’s the rough, corduroy-like start at first glance. Usually, it’s the part where people say, “It’s nothing personal,” when what they mean is the complete flip a hundred-eighty round, and the case had been like that. An enthusiast greeting went ignored. A prolonged relation that consisted of mere acknowledgments and a mutual affiliation that’s falsely based on: a girl, a boy, a skateboard, a misunderstanding.</p><p>But then, you’d blink once— twice, thrice— and it’s like seeing through a clearer lens.</p><p>It’s El, experiencing what could be possibly Max’s everyday life, but with just an entity of zest. It’s El with unanswered questions and transparent looks. It’s El, embodying innocence even by the age of fifteen. It’s El, coming to her, not knowing what’s to come about Max’s heart much later on, already tugging on her sleeve.</p><p>It’s El, clutching at her wails and uncoordinated limbs, as Billy’s soul wastes away from his body.</p><p> </p><p>“You do that a lot,” El says, her words slow and purposeful.</p><p>Max blinks. She’s at a loss. “I do what a lot?”</p><p>El raises a point finger and nudges lightly right in between Max’s eyes, making her cross-eyed.</p><p>“Stare. You do it a lot,” she says and it’s neither accusatory or, what Max is mildly leaning towards, patent teasing. It’s soft, an overt statement, but it’s one occupied with a soft smile and a finger sloping down her nose.</p><p>Oh— <em>oh</em>. El is here.</p><p>El is here, and Max has been spacing out.</p><p>Max recovers herself, pressing her side to the headboard to fully face El, and braces a quick shrug.</p><p>“My head’s in the clouds.” It’s not a lie. Just an overruling of the whole truth.</p><p>El stares at her for awhile— not long enough for her to turn into a ripe tomato, but enough for her to drop her gaze— then she mirrors Max’s position.</p><p>“You do that a lot too,” El fidgets, her socked feet in toes with Max’s blanketed ones, “I’m worried.”</p><p> </p><p>It’s also El, losing her abilities, yet she’s more super than Max would ever be.</p><p> </p><p>And that's the little nudge Max needs. For now. </p><p>She levels with El, tips her head closer, and El is unmoving. “I’ll be okay,” Max says. “I want you to be okay.”— <em>I want you to be okay because it’s all you ever deserve. </em></p><p>El sags, like she’s breathing out in relief. Then a nod, a smile, and a hand thumbing her cheek: as if it’s the greatest thing El’s heard all day.</p><p>“We’ll be fine.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>SO, it's 4am and i am overloaded with feelings for these two. kudos and comments are very much appreciated!!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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